President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence (DNI) will cause shockwaves in and among the 18 fiefdoms that now comprise the U.S. intelligence community.
Gabbard will be fighting an uphill battle if she tries to herd those 18 cats into a cohesive whole and restore integrity to intelligence analysis. The hill’s incline will be still steeper, if she takes seriously her duty to warn the president of the frequently noxious blowback of C.I.A. covert actions. I cannot overcome the urge to quote from “The Princess Bride”: Good luck stormin’ the castle, Tulsi … It will take a miracle!
In short, the odds are against her. Whether she succeeds depends, first and foremost, on how strongly the president backs her. Unlike most former DNIs, she has already demonstrated uncommon courage, as well as smarts and political skill.
On the other hand, she has had virtually no experience managing a large institution, much less a “community” well versed in internecine warfare to protect individual rice bowls, and populated with careerist bureaucrats all too accustomed to telling the ultimate boss, the president, what he wants to hear.
Important Duties
The DNI is in charge of preparing The President’s Daily Brief (PDB), National Intelligence Estimates and the annual Threat Assessment required by Congress. What is less well known is her role in covert action — a favorite of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service.
Executive Order 12333 (July 2008) stipulates:
“The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) shall oversee and provide advice to the President and the NSC with respect to all ongoing and proposed covert action programs.”
Thus, what the EO says. My own experience suggests that this covert-action-related duty has been more honored in the breach than in the observance, so to speak. Director of Central Intelligence William Colby was, in my personal experience, the only director to give intelligence analysts a look at some covert action proposals and ask for comment. I served directly under Colby as an acting national intelligence officer in the mid-70s.
Will DNI Tulsi Gabbard (assuming she is confirmed by the Senate) step up to this task? It would take uncommon courage. Was the current DNI, Avril Haines, informed beforehand that the C.I.A. would blow up the Nord Stream pipelines? If so, did she give it her blessing? Or was she kept in the dark?
Blowing Up Pipelines …
My guess is that DNI Gabbard would have promptly recognized the folly in that C.I.A. “can-do” attitude/escapade and would have briefed the president on its longer-term implications. She is a good listener to analysts who she asks to brief her. I know that, too, from personal experience responding to her questions when she was one of Hawaii’s representatives in the House.
It would take a courageous and politically astute person and strong backing and trust from the president for any DNI to be able to fulfill the duty to “oversee and provide advice … on covert action programs.”
… and Blowing Off the Analysts
Sizable covert action programs require a sanity check from analysts with substantive expertise, as sad experience has shown. Recall the Bay of Bigs operation of April 1961. At President John Kennedy’s request, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. investigated the affair. His conclusion, set down in a MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT dated June 30, 1961, speaks for itself:
“The trouble with the Cuban [Bay of Pigs] operation, for example, was not that the intelligence and operations were combined, but precisely that the Cuban operation evaded systematic intelligence judgment. The Intelligence Branch (DDI) of the CIA was never informed of the existence of the Cuban operation. The Office of National Estimates was never asked to comment on the assumption, for example, that discontent had reached the point in Cuba where a successful landing operation would provoke uprisings behind the lines and defections from the Militia.
I gather that if its opinion had been invited, DDI would have given quite a different estimate of the state of opinion in Cuba from that on which the operation was based. …
The Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the Department of State knew even less about the Cuban operation.”
DNI Position: A Creature of 9/11
As most are aware, there was enough intelligence available before 9/11 to prevent it. But the cats would not be herded. C.I.A. would not share with F.B.I. and vice versa. NSA would share with no one. Here’s one account that will turn your stomach.
The congressional oversight committees as well as the administration and the intelligence community were not only intent on covering up what had happened, but needed to make it appear that remedial action was being taken.
Enter the 9/11 Commission and its recommendations. Here, they said, was the problem: George Tenet, as director of central intelligence (head of the whole community) as well as chief of the C.I.A. was overburdened.
In fact, Tenet was the antithesis of an effective head of the intelligence community; he screwed up royally. But he also knew “where the bodies were buried” — which key administration and congressional officials had been exposed to some of the disregarded intelligence. So it was not deemed safe to lay the blame where it clearly belonged.
A fiction was devised. The problem was said to be that “no one was in charge of the intelligence community.” So the 9/11 Commission recommended that a new superstructure be created to coordinate the community (and let no one be held accountable).
On July 22, 2004, immediately after the 9/11 Commission report was released, I found myself with 9/11 commissioner (and former senator from Washington) Slade Gorton in the BBC blue room in Washington. I had the temerity to remind him that it was far from the case that “no one was in charge” of the intelligence community; that Tenet had all the authority he needed.
Gorton turned to me, smiled and said: “Of course we know all that; but we in the Commission and in Congress just had to do something so the American people would see that we were doing something.”
Yuck.
The national intelligence director, and the newly created bureaucracy, is what it is. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard can take the reins and make the community work. It will take a miracle; let’s hope for one.
Re: Ray McGovern: Will Gabbard Be Able to Direct the Intelligence ‘Community’?
The nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as the United States intelligence supremo has sent shockwaves through the American and NATO establishments. The Western news media – always a dutiful echo chamber for deep-state policymakers – is reverberating with horror at her nomination by President-elect Donald Trump.
That reaction is a good sign that something significant has happened.
The potential appointment of Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) could be the most consequential decision yet by Trump in forming his cabinet.
If one move could signal the foreign policy direction under the 47th president, Gabbard’s nomination is the most salient and potentially the most constructive on the key issue of world peace.
Time magazine headlined with the U.S. intelligence community’s response to Gabbard’s selection. “We are reeling,” it was reported. Reuters reported that the Western “spy world is vexed.” Meanwhile, in The Atlantic, an establishment mouthpiece, Gabbard was denounced as a “threat to the security of the United States.”
That’s a staggering charge to levy on the person who is going to be head of national security.
It is almost hilarious to see the apoplectic reaction in the U.S. establishment and its servile mainstream media.
CNN’s news anchor Jim Sciutto was distraught in sharing his concerns with colleague Richard Quest, remarking that Gabbard’s views “contradict” almost everything about U.S. foreign policies.
If we may paraphrase that exchange, the sentiments were: Oh my God, how terrible! Whatever shall we say now about all the lies we have been spinning for years and getting fat salaries for?
After all, as far as the U.S. corporate media are concerned, especially those channels and newspapers associated with the Democrats, the establishment, and the deep state intelligence apparatus, Tulsi Gabbard has been smeared as a “Russian asset.”
It is indeed profoundly challenging – one might even say, earth-shattering – to the deep state if Gabbard becomes Director of National Intelligence.
As with Trump’s other cabinet picks, the nominations will have to be approved by Senate panels. So there is a while to go before her post is confirmed. A lot can change or be derailed.
Trump’s cabinet picks this week have been keenly watched by observers trying to discern the future foreign policies of the next presidency, which begins in January after his inauguration. Trump’s early call-ups this week of hawkish figures Pete Hegseth for defense and Marco Rubio for secretary of state caused dismay among some critics of U.S. foreign policy who wanted a fundamental break from warmongering and hostility toward Russia, China, and Iran, among others.
Then came Trump’s selection of Tulsi Gabbard. The former Congresswoman has gained wide popular American and international respect for her outspoken and independent criticism of U.S. militarism in the Middle East and Ukraine.
However, the U.S. political establishment and media have slandered her as a “traitor” and a “Russian asset” for her views criticizing Washington’s regime change wars in Syria and the Middle East. In 2017, Gabbard traveled to Syria and met with President Bashar al-Assad. She spoke out against Washington’s covert policy of sponsoring terrorist militia for regime change in Damascus. For telling the truth, she was vilified as an “apologist” for Assad.
More recently, the “apologist” slur was thrown at her again after Gabbard opposed the U.S. and NATO’s arming of the Kiev regime and the proxy war against Russia. She said that the conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided if Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s threatening expansion had been taken into consideration. How refreshing to hear that sanity and objectivity.
In a twisted way, the CNN clapping seals are correct. Her views on the conflict in Ukraine do indeed contradict the U.S. establishment and media’s propaganda about “Russian aggression.” Her views unequivocally debunk the wall-to-wall “news” propaganda as false and serve as a warning to the public that NATO’s lies are dragging the world into a nuclear war.
The role of Tulsi Gabbard in the second Trump administration – if she makes it through Senate vetting – cannot be overstated.
In her DNI capacity, she is the intel supremo who oversees the CIA and NSA. Through her daily briefings to the president, Gabbard will play a crucial role in President Trump’s foreign policymaking. Given Trump’s freewheeling style, it can be fairly assumed that Gabbard’s input into policymaking will have much greater influence than the secretaries of defense or state. She will call the shots, and Trump will designate Hegseth, Rubio, and others to follow suit on the policies.
Some critics of Gabbard have pointed out that she is unduly supportive of Israel. That is a valid concern.
Nevertheless, in relations with Russia, China, and Iran, Gabbard has been a trenchant and tenacious voice of reason. She has courageously advocated peaceful negotiations and diplomacy along with historical understanding as a way to avoid military conflicts. Her reasonable emphasis on diplomacy illustrates just how extremist the U.S. “mainstream” has become in its promotion of wars and more wars.
Gabbard is a veteran of the Iraq War and appears to have been deeply affected by the human cost of wars. She has repeatedly condemned endless wars that are endemic to U.S. imperialism. Her honesty in criticizing the failings and faults of American policy, calling it out often as criminal, is admirable.
She quit the Democrat party in 2022, condemning it for its relentless warmongering policies. She endorsed Trump for the White House because, she said, he would prevent World War Three by stopping the reckless proxy war in Ukraine.
President-elect Trump has said that he wants to end the conflict in Ukraine as one of his priorities.
Some commentators have expressed skepticism about the chances of Trump making a peace settlement in Ukraine. Even senior Russian figures have said they do not expect significant change in U.S. policy.
Still, Russia has clearly stated that it is open to dialogue and diplomacy. Moscow has said it will respond positively to Trump’s outreach. And Trump is reported to be ready to appoint an envoy of credible stature to explore a peaceful solution in Ukraine.
Now, there’s the rub. Russia is adamant that its conditions for peaceful settlement must involve its original objectives: no Ukraine membership of NATO, denazification of the Kiev regime, and acceptance of realities on the ground, meaning recognition of Russia’s regained historical territories. Russia will not accept a frozen conflict, and given the rapid military advances it is making against the NATO-backed regime, Moscow is in a position to fully demand its terms.
If Trump is serious about finding a peaceful resolution, he will have to accept Russia’s terms. That will require an understanding of how that conflict started and how to reverse it. No bluster, no bravado, and certainly no browbeating Russia.
Tulsi Gabbard can provide the necessary counsel to Trump upon which a lasting peace settlement can be made because she understands the history of that conflict and has debunked the false propaganda that the U.S. establishment, the Democrats, some Republicans, and the corporate media have peddled for far too long.
In the meantime, Russia must advance towards its righteous goals in Ukraine. And right now, the best contribution to peace is to defeat the corrupt Nazi regime in Kiev in short order.
on November 17, 2024, 4:04 pm